Timbuktu mayor says Islamists burned texts

ISLAMIST extremists have torched a library containing historic manuscripts in Timbuktu as French and Malian forces close in on the desert city.

Mayor Ousmane Halle said he heard about the burnings early on Monday.

"It's truly alarming that this has happened," he told The Associated Press by telephone from Mali's capital, Bamako.

"They torched all the important ancient manuscripts. The ancient books of geography and science. It is the history of Timbuktu, of its people."

He said he did not have details or know whether the rebels were still in the town.

Ground forces backed by French paratroopers and helicopters took control of Timbuktu's airport and the roads leading to the town in an overnight operation, a French military official said on Monday.

It marked the latest success in the two-week-old French mission to oust radical Islamists from the northern half of Mali, which they seized more than nine months ago.

French Colonel Thierry Burkhard, the chief military spokesman in Paris, said the town's airport was taken without firing a shot.

"There was an operation on Timbuktu last night that allowed us to control access to the town," he said. "It's up to Malian forces to retake the town."

The Timbuktu operation comes a day after the French announced they had seized the airport and a key bridge in a city east of Timbuktu, Gao, one of the other northern provincial capitals that had been under the grip of radical Islamists.

The French and Malian forces have met little resistance from the Islamists, who seized northern Mali in the wake of a military coup in the distant capital of Bamako, in southern Mali.

Timbuktu, which is on an ancient caravan route, has entranced travellers for centuries. It is about 1,000 kilometres northeast of Bamako, the capital. During their rule, the militants have systematically destroyed UNESCO World Heritage sites in Timbuktu.

A spokesman for the al-Qaeda-linked militants has said the ancient tombs of Sufi saints were destroyed because they contravened Islam, encouraging Muslims to venerate saints instead of God.

Among the tombs they destroyed is that of Sidi Mahmoudou, a saint who died in 955, according to the UNESCO website.

Timbuktu, long a hub of Islamic learning, is also home to some 20,000 manuscripts, some dating back to the 12th century. Owners have succeeded in removing some of the manuscripts from Timbuktu to save them, while others have been carefully hidden away from the Islamists.